Bozeman, Montana, recently made history by becoming the first U.S. city to include a citizens' initiative regulating the use of single-use plastics on its Election Day ballot. The initiative passed with 64% of the vote, Cowboy State Daily reported.
Though other states and cities have passed legislation banning the use of certain single-use plastic items or banning the use of single-use plastics in certain settings — New York, Massachusetts, and Washington, to name a few — the Bozeman ban is the first time the legislation has come from the voters themselves.
Citizens, led by Bozeman's Plastics Ordinance Working Group, had to gather signatures to get the ordinance on the ballot and also had to survive a lawsuit challenging its language before voting even happened.
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Now that the ordinance has passed, it is clear that there will be more legal challenges before it can be implemented, fueled by businesses that want to keep using cheap single-use plastic bags and Styrofoam containers at the expense of the environment.
It's worth noting that a similar ordinance in Cheyenne, Wyoming, failed, as local business owners claimed switching to paper bags would cost up to $4,000 more per year, yielding a concern that the cost would be pushed to consumers. The citizens behind the Bozeman ordinance, however, are confident that it can survive legal scrutiny.
"There's provisions in the Montana Constitution that state all power resides in the people, and the people reserved to themselves the right of initiative and referendum," said Dan Carty, a retired biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service who is a member of the Plastics Ordinance Working Group.
Whatever happens with this specific ordinance, it is a clear sign that regular people are on board with the idea of limiting the plastic products that are contributing to the overheating of our planet, crowding landfills, killing wildlife, and leaching microplastics into our water and soil.
The groups standing in opposition to that are businesses that view their ability to maximize profit margins as more important than our collective right to live in a world that is not drowning in plastic pollution. We'll see whether the courts agree with those businesses or with the people.
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